Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Computing devices such as personal computers, laptop computers, tablet computers, cellular phones, and countless types of Internet-capable devices are increasingly prevalent in numerous aspects of modern life. Over time, the manner in which these devices are providing information to users is becoming more intelligent, more efficient, more intuitive, and/or less obtrusive.
The trend toward miniaturization of computing hardware, peripherals, as well as of sensors, detectors, and image and audio processors, among other technologies, has helped open up a field sometimes referred to as “wearable computing.” A wearable computer device (WCD) that is capable of being worn on a user's head may be referred to as a “head mountable-device” (HMD) or “head-mounted device.” HMDs may vary in size, taking a smaller form such as a glasses-style display, or a larger form such as a helmet, for example.
In some applications, wearable computing devices (WCD) may be operated by a voice command. Typically, the WCD listens for specific words (i.e., “hotwords” or “wake words”), which activate a voice interface when spoken by a user. Upon detecting the hotwords, the WCD notifies the user that the voice interface is activated and prompts the user to provide a voice command. The user then speaks the voice command, which the WCD receives via a microphone. When the WCD detects that the user is no longer speaking (e.g., by detecting a period of silence), the WCD deactivates the voice interface and processes the spoken words. Generally, the WCD may use speech recognition technologies (e.g., natural language processing) to process spoken words, convert them to a machine-readable format, and responsively carry out programmed actions.